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Mike Zunino hit a home run, impossibly, over the beer garden in center field.  They gave him credit for 445 feet, of which ripoff stunned Jay Buhner into silence.  That should give you a feel for how chintzy the measurement was.  Then again, Stanton's ball was off the legal premises at Dodger and that got only 475 feet, so okay.  But here's the vid if you want to savor id.

His other homer jussssst missed the second deck in left, and he had a frozen rope into left field for another single.  Time for some splits:

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We don't say that Zuumball is all systems go.  But that April 6-29 stretch ... we've always preached that when you change from doing it wrong to doing it right, you're going to get worse before you get better.

If you associate "extremely long home runs" with "high power potential in the long term," you're in good company.  Earl Weaver used to use "extreme distance" to identify his favorite hitting prospects in spring training.  And it ain't like this is Zuumball's first moon shot.

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Nelson Cruz has 15 homers in the first 20% of the season.  Last year, Robinson Cano had 14.  That's "Cano", and that's "year."  

As Earl once said about his left field platoon and their homers, "once every fourteen at-bats those boys were doing a whale of a lot to win me a ball game."  Earl thought that home runs were badly underestimated by baseball people in the eighties.  Imagine what he would think about Fangraphs writers ;- )

I dunno.  Personally I probably overrate homers.  But spot me the premise of "2 Mariner homers" in J.A. Happ's next start and I'll bet Seattle.

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32 games is right at 20% of a season.  Multiply any Mariner player's stat by 5 and you got an easy pace mark for the season.  Besides Nellie's 75 dongs, a few other kewl pace numbers:

• Felix = 30 wins
• Rodney = 45/50 saves
• LoMo = 30 homers
• Carson Smith = 10 losses, 1.23 ERA
• Mariners = 210 homers
• Tyler Olson = 50 walks
• Kyle Seager = 20 errors
• Robinson Cano = 55 doubles
• Put your own in the comments thread pleezy

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Chris Taylor had two doubles robbed in the same spot in the RF corner.  And another line-shot single hit too hard, so it held up for the center fielder.  ... since he came up, he's only 4-for-22 and they're all singles.  But I just flat believe in him as a hitter.  End of story.

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Dustin Ackley, we're sure, will make some All-Star teams.  For other teams, naturally.  Tonight I hit the point, as I did with Justin Smoak, to where I stopped caring what he does after the M's shed him.  Am not yet at that point with Jesus Montero, which should tell you something.  But am there with Ackley.

And I'm about two parsecs behind the curve on that one.

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On Robinson Cano, this Shout was awesome:

MtGrizzly:  What would be analogous to the way the strike zone is called in MLB when it comes to the NFL? Something akin to saying that it takes 10 yards to get a first down but having no yard markers and no measurements and leaving it up to the head ref to decide if a team has the first down or not. Ridiculous.

That'll do for us too.  Do you guys think they'll ever "automate" the strike zone, even if it's only by assisting the home plate ump?  What's the over/under on years?

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If anybody cares, we will give a little push forward on deciphering the title reference:

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Justin Ruggiano ... it was a logical move when they made it.  So eminently logical that we were sure it would work out like Chris Denorfia, or Ben Broussard, or Percy Harvin, or make your own list.

So far so good, though.  His stats are only okay, but from the 3rd deck and the CF camera, he looks just fine in the American League.  The NL* platoon is working out fine and dandy, even though Smith and Ruggiano never seem to platoon.

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Logan Morrison had a homer graze the fence as it went over.  That reminded us of Greg Norman's quote ... a reporter asked him once if fate owed him a major championship.  "Fate owes me five majors," said the Shark.  I dunno if Moe agrees on Norman :- ) but Dr. D will go with that on LoMo.

They asked Buhner what he thought about the new heavy bat.  Bone's reaction was, It will force you to use your hands more.  

What does that mean?  Maybe LoMo was too hips-conscious, I dunno.  Here is where baseball does vary from golf:  as you use your lower body more, you get more power, but --- > your quickness and agility suffers.  You can't move your butt as fast as you can move your hands.  In golf, quick-reaction is not quite so important as it is when trying to hit 95 MPH.

LoMo has actually been getting the bat "out in front" (to pull the ball) much better since he went to the Boomstick.  So it sounds like Bone is exactly right.  But Dr. D would be very interested to hear RockiesJeff give the bottom line here.

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A Denny's waitress told Steven Wright that she "served breakfast anytime."  So he ordered French Toast during the renaissance.

On April 29th, Lloyd McClendon ordered the renaissances of both Mike Zunino and Logan Morrison:

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Go M's,

Dr D